


psychorrhagy

by kelpie_flavored



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Horror, Creepy, Grimdark, Horror, just assume that it's all horrific shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 12:20:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19790761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kelpie_flavored/pseuds/kelpie_flavored
Summary: psychorrhagy, definition: temporary manifestation of a person's soul to other persons at a distance from their bodyRose can't die yet, she still needs to save her friends.





	psychorrhagy

**Author's Note:**

> See end notes for content warnings. Proceed without them at your own risk.

Rose Lalonde’s body collapses to the ground after she dies of a fatal stab to the abdomen by Bec Noir.  _ But,  _ she thinks to herself,  _ Rose Lalonde is not dead.  _ Rose’s purpose, fueled by the horrorterrors, has not been served. Her body cannot give out until she has avenged her mother. Until she has saved her teammates. Until she has completed her obligation.

Her body rises. Right as Noir is about to stab John she turns his sword back around on him. In one fatal hit and a tug of a ring off his finger, he is gone. Not physically, of course, but the threat of him is gone.

John begins talking animatedly about how cool that was, and how did she come back, and is she okay, and blah blah… she tunes it out unintentionally, she has more important things to say. She turns to him, quiets him with the gesture of a finger to her lips. She tells him she’s going to _save_ the session, she’s going to _save_ him, she’s going to _save_ _Dave_ and _Jade and the trolls,_ and everyone left alive, she’s going to save everything, _everything_.

John looks horrified as garbled, screeching words come out of his friend’s mouth. Rose only continues to get worse and worse. She doesn’t even realize.

And he doesn’t understand the point she’s trying to make, **why doesn’t he understand this?** Rose is trying to help him. She **needs** to help him. He needs to **understand**. She can **_help_** **him understand**. John is backing away, saying something unimportant, and why doesn’t he understand she’s trying to **_help?_** _She’s going to help._ She’s going to help him understand she’s helping. She can hear his screams of fear as she grabs his arms, as they melt under her hands, she tells him over and over that she’s helping him understand, that he’ll know why she’s doing this in a second and he **_needs to calm down._** Just **_calm down John. JUST CALM DOWN._**

And, with enough effort, with enough melting away of the barriers that make them two separate people in mind and body, he _ calms down _ , he  _ understands _ . Rose gives a thankful smile, this is much better. She can save him in peace now. Rose now realizes the rest of her teammates likely won’t be so cooperative, but it just helps her to prepare. She knows what is best for the team, even if they don’t know it themselves. She is a friendleader now, after all.

-

It takes some wandering around (and some helpful whisperings from the horrorterrors) to find her other friends.

Jade is just waking from a nap when Rose finds her, she looks a little shaken, a little delirious, Rose feels sorry. She feels bad that she wasn’t able to save Jade from whatever she was just having.  _ But,  _ Rose reminds herself,  _ she can save her now. She can save everyone. _

Jade’s eyes open wide when she finally sees Rose in her doorway. She shrieks, seemingly convinced Rose is some sort of monster, or that she’s one of the imps come to attack Jade in her own home. And Rose has to admit, it hurts. Why doesn’t Jade recognize her own friend? Why does she look like she’s grabbing for her gun? Why does-? Then Rose sees recognition kick in. A horrified look stretches across her friend’s face, Jade takes a few shaky breaths before whispering Rose’s name. Smiles of appreciation appear on Rose’s mouths. Jade knows who she is. 

Rose approaches Jade slowly, like a lion stalking its prey (except Rose is helping instead of hurting, of course.) She tells Jade that she is going to fix things, nothing will go wrong in the session or in their lives ever again. Rose is going to save it all. She can help Jade understand it. The same way she helped John understand. The same way Dave will understand. The same way the trolls will understand. The same way everyone will eventually understand. Everyone will understand, even if Rose has to help them herself.

She grabs firmly onto Jade’s hands with her own. She tells Jade reassurances that things will become alright,  **Rose is helping** her understand, and lose contact is expected when a friend is helping, isn’t it? It will only take the breaking down of a few barriers for Jade to understand. This makes Rose hold firmer onto Jade’s hands, and she’s frozen. She feels the barrier breaking down across. She takes a few breaths to steady herself and she feels it all calm down. It all calms down.

Everything relaxes again with a few deep breaths to steady herself.

Rose goes off to find Dave.

-

Dave is on the ground in the Land of Wind and Shade when Rose finds him, he seems a bit shaken from a hit on the back of his head, it’s hard to tell if he has a concussion though with the sunglasses and the fact that he seems to not be focused on her. At least, he doesn’t seem focused on her  _ at first. _ He seems to notice her when she comes closer. Dave doesn’t seem outwardly afraid of her. Well, he doesn’t if you’re not observant. 

Dave has the slightest tremor to his hands. Rose notices small things about her friends, how is she supposed to help people if she can’t pick up on the little things like that? Rose whispers to him that things are okay, she’s trying to help everyone, and he is part of that everyone. She understands that he’s scared, but there’s nothing to be afraid of. She’s helping. Rose reaches out to touch his shoulder but he shies away. Right, she should know that Dave has some boundary issues. But he shouldn’t be afraid. No one should be afraid of their friend.

He seems to come back into his senses and realizes she’s not a hallucination. Of course she’s not, why would anyone think that? Dave pulls out his sword. That makes Rose back up a little,  **what’s wrong with Dave** ? She asks. What’s wrong with him? Why would he pull a weapon on  **his** **_friend_ ** , much less  **_sister_ ** ? She walks forward and she sees him ready himself to strike, she doesn’t give the chance, she grabs his wrist. He’s struggling and clearly not paying attention to the very important things she’s saying, but she says them anyways, she’s a true friend and she will help him back to his senses. It doesn’t take much force before he drops the sword, he’s still shaking. She needs to help him back to his senses, she steps forward. She takes firm hold of his other wrist and makes him look at her. She  **helps** . 

**Dave understands.**

**Rose relaxes. The trolls will be here soon.**

**She can feel it.**

-

It’s already been a hectic day, so Kanaya does have to say she feels bad asking everyone to search for the missing members of the human session, but she needs to feel like not everything has gone off the rails after the deaths of most of her friends. If there’s any chance that they could find the missing humans and calm her nerves she’s taking it. It’s not like everyone didn’t have the choice to stay back and not help. 

And, as if she can sense how high-strung she feels, Vriska puts a hand on her shoulder and says in all her confidence, “come oooooooon, Maryam, we’ll find your stupid human crush girl and her friends and things will turn all romantic like in those stupid romcoms Karkat likes to watch and we’ll all live happily ever after.” Vriska, however annoying she may be, was sort of right. Surely Rose would have told her if things were going to go rapidly worse in the session anytime soon. Things will likely be fine, they can’t get much worse from the day she’s already had.

Aradia chimes into the conversation with a bright smile on her face. “Okay! I think I found where all the humans are! The Land of Wind and Shade! It’s lucky for us they’ve all seemed to have ended up in the same place.” That… is very lucky. Kanaya has to admit she thought it’d be harder to find them, since they’d all been spread out when she’d last checked on everyone. Aradia’s grin only widens when she prepares to transport everyone. “Come on! We all know the drill! Hold hands unless you want to get destroyed and lost in a timeline where you’ll die confused and alone!” Everyone reluctantly holds hands.

Kanaya can’t say she likes the sudden jolt of traveling like this, but it’s the quickest way to get to the humans and check on them, so she’ll take what she can get. She does her best to shake off the dizziness she feels (she’s doing much better than Karkat at least, who looks like he’s about to puke his guts out) and survey her surroundings. Instead of the missing members of the session she sees- something. An imp? She can’t be sure, it looks too humanoid to be an imp. Maybe humanoid isn’t quite right here. It had some kind of human features and- it was getting up. It was moving. Kanaya sinks her teeth into her lip to steady herself, wills herself to stay calm and think of her next move carefully. It almost works until Terezi blurts out, “hey! What smells like black licorice?!” Karkat turns to her, probably to shout something stupid, when he notices. Kanaya can see the fear overtake him. She watches him freeze up, watches him take in a shallow, unsteady breath, watches his ears flick back like a cat who has just realized it’s in deep shit, watches as his thinkpan processes what he’s seeing. 

She watches as the thing approaches their group.

-

It felt like things were taking forever. Time was moving _slowly,_ _ever so_ ** _slowly_**. She could feel the seconds tick by in her head. She almost makes a move to go to a different area, but she is stopped when she hears a loud voice behind her. Ah, things had moved quicker than she’d thought. She turns and greets her new friends with grateful smiles. It felt like they’d never get here. But **here** they are.

She turns towards them and walks slowly, her friends had gotten startled at first when she’d tried to help them, so she thinks it likely her new friends will be the same. And if she looks closely she sees a troll whose sign seems ever so familiar in color. Kanaya. Darling Kanaya. 

She sees the troll move back a few steps and call to her friends before pulling out a tube of lipstick. A tube of lipstick that is no longer a tube of lipstick. Rose is angry now. Why are all of her friends trying to hurt her when  _ she’s trying to  _ **_help_ ** _?  _ Her mouths’ welcoming grins quickly turn into snarls of frustration,  _ why doesn’t anyone _ **_understand her_ ** _? Rose is going to  _ **_help,_ ** _ whether anyone may like it or not. She will  _ **_help them._ ** John tried to hit her with his hammer and  _ she still  _ **_helped._ ** Jade tried to  _ shoot her and  _ **_she still helped._ ** Dave  _ tried to stab her  _ **_and she still helped._ ** She  _ will  _ **_help_ ** _ these trolls  _ **_whether they like it or not. She will save them._ **

_ Rose can’t  _ help _ but scream she’s trying to  _ help _. Why doesn’t anyone accept her  _ help _? _

She hears the trolls scream as  **she helps them.** Sees them run away from her, sees them tremor in fear,  **but she finds she does not care,** **_she’s helping._ **

She takes the time to find every single troll. 

Karkat is last, it seems like he’s good at hiding.

She’s good at helping.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: lots of implied death, non consensual mind melding, skin melting, forceful grabbing, unhealthy mindsets, body horror, weapons, mild dark humor, implied abuse, and vomit
> 
> Feel free to tell me to add any warnings.
> 
> [my tumblr is @kelpieinfestedwaters](https://kelpieinfestedwaters.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Edit 7/21/19- [there is now an illustration! :D](https://gallows--calibrator.tumblr.com/post/186458638834/s-h-e-s-h-e-l-p-i-n-g)


End file.
